GreenDestiny

Hi everyone!

On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram I read that "Drastic lesions can be made in animal brains which reduce, but do not extinguish memories (training), as demonstrated by Karl Lashley in the 1920s."

Does anyone know about these experiments? How is this seen today in neuroscience? Can memories be extinguished by brain lesions?

Another question I have refers to a different Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory#Physiology

It it you can read: "Other scientists who have investigated the nature of memory, namely neurologists John Carew Eccles and Wilder Penfield and biologist Rupert Sheldrake, have suggested that memories are a field phenomenon and are not stored in the brain at all, but rather accessed through neurological structures."

Does anyone know anything about these theories? If memories and the mind are not part of the brain, what is the brain good for in the context of memorizing things then? Is the brain actually needed for the functionality of memory according to these theories or could the mind theoretically access them without having or using a brain?

Keep in mind that the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence" All of this is very prone to the post hoc, ergo propter hoc[/i'] fallacy. (happened after, therefore was caused by). Correlation is not the same as causality.

Yes, of course I also know that all these stories are only anecdotes. But when I read stories like that I always find myself asking "how can that be?"... and then I don't find rest until I come up with a good explanation for it.

Now about the book "The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy", also by Jack Deere.

(Amazon.com link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0830733892/)

Apparently there are persons who call themselves 'prophets' and who are supposedly able to know things about other people the haven't met before and are allegedly even able to foretell their future.

The author of the book, Jack Deere, tells that he didn't believe in this himself at first. He then went to see such a person and try him out. As a result he became convinced of modern prophecy.

He met that person at a church called Kansas City Fellowship and his name was Mike Bickle.

I will only quote some parts relating to what the prophet said. The story is told with a lot more detail in the book.

While telling this story, Deere even mentions cold reading, by the way. He says that because he knew about these tricks he hardened his face like stone and didn't give him any clue about him whatsoever.

Then he spoke.

"Oh, I didn't expect to see you here this morning."

[...] "What do you mean? I don't even know you," I said.

"Well, I know you. It was eight nights ago. I had a dream. I woke up at three in the morning. I thought it was important so I wrote it down. You were in the dream. Would you like me to tell you what the Lord showed me about you?"

"Yes," is what I said. What I thought was, Try me. Take your best shot. I'm not going to be deceived. I have been warned about you prophets.I should mention that I was in a completely different tradition of Christianity than this fellow, and he really did not know me.

 

[...]

 

Then he spoke, and revealed everything.

 

"You have a prayer," he said in a soft southern accent, "but it's more than a prayer. It's one of the major dreams of your heart." Then he told me that prayer I had prayed that very morning in the hotel. And he was right. It was the dream of my heart.

"God said to tell you this dream is from him and you will get what you are asking for."

I could tell you what the prayer was and still is, but telling it now would be, at the very least, immodest, and worse, perhaps self-serving. At the time it was the biggest thing I could think to ask for. And here, like Daniel, is this prophet telling me my dream and that it will come true.

 

My granite face did not crack, not even slightly.

 

[...]

 

Next subject.

"You had a father who dropped the ball on you," he said.

[...]

My father had dropped the ball on me, on all of us. [He goes on to talk about his father's suicide when he was still a boy. He left his mother with four kids.]

[...]

"The Lord is going to make up the loss of your father to you. He will send you new fathers. You won't learn from just one man. You will have the father you need for each new stage in your life."

[...]

 

Next subject.

"When you were young, the Lord gave you athletic ability, but he allowed you to be frustrated in the use of it. This was so you would put all your effort into cultivating the intellect. You've done that, but it hasn't brought you what you expected, and you're heartsick."

 

He could not have given a more accurate synopsis of the past thirty-eight years.

 

[He goes on about how he was born with athletic ability and had a keen interest in sports as a kid, but when his father died he couldn't proceed with it, because there was no one to take him to practices and he had other things to do in the household. In high school he went back into sports again, but had an ankle injury. He gave up on athletics. After a 'wild' phase of recklessness he found Jesus and began studying. He then tried to find his identity in being smart, especially theologically smart (he became professor of Old Testament exegesis and Semitic languages), but as a result of that he wound up heartsick. He says that he was heartsick, but hid it from everyone. He continued to stare at the 'prophet'.]

 

"All of that frustration was necessary to fulfill that God has on your life."

 

So there was a purpose behind the heartsickness. It was the mercy of God inviting me to travel a new road. [...] He sent me heartsickness to warn me of the danger of building my identity on such shaky foundations as athletics and academics.

 

[...]

Next subject.

"You're in a conflict right now, and you think there are only three people on your side. The Lord says to tell you that there are five more on your side."

 

I was in a conflict and I did think only three people stood by me. Besides me, the only one in the room who knew about this was Leesa [His wife]. There was no way the prophet could have known about the conflict. Yet he did. How did he know this? How did he know any of these things?

 

I was astounded. He was a real prophet.

 

[...]

 

Next subject.

The future. The prophet left the topic of my past and went on to my future. These predictions, I think, were meant for me to ponder, not publish. Since these words were exclusively about the future, they, of course, could not be verified. But because he had gotten four key facts about my past correct and given them a meaningful interpretation, I believed his predictions.

 

I should have fallen on my knees like the psalmist, crying out to the nations to give glory to God, but I couldn't. My facade of indifference remained intact. [...] That way, when it was all over, I would know it was all God, and that I had not influenced any of it.

 

Now the prophet was finished with me.

[...] The prophet had told me the secrets of my heart. The secret prayer of my ministry. The pain of my childhood. The secret frustration of my adolescene. The secret heartsickness of my adulthood. The secret conflict of my present life. With each secret came a promise that gave me freedom from the past and hope for the future. The prophet was real. I wanted to shout for joy to the Lord, but I didn't know how. Instead, I simply said, "Thanks."

 

[...]

 

Next he shifted his attention to my wife. He was just as accurate and meaningful with her Leesa put up no shield. She did not need one. It took only a few sentences before tears streamed down her face and sobs revealed the transparent honesty by which she lived. His soft southern voice continued calmly right through her tears, healing and promising. But that is Leesa's story to tell, not mine.

 

When we were walking out of the room, Mike asked me,

"Was anything of that meaningful to you?"

"All of it was right on the money. Couldn't have been more correct," I said.

"You've got to be kidding. I was watching your face the whole time. I was sure you thought it was all just a bunch of bull!"

"I had been warned."

"Oh, now I understand."

"The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy", pp. 15-25

This is all only from the first chapter of the book. I haven't read anything from the rest so far. But what do you think about this story?

Actually it sounds a bit cracy... modern prophets? It even sounds strange from a theological point of view. Didn't the old prophets reveal general things about the future? Or are prophets that tell people personal things about their lives and show them new ways for the future also mentioned anywhere in the Bible? But admittedly, I'm not Christian. According to Deere God spoke to him through the prophet.

How could one explain all the things that this guy told Deere about his life?

I just found something new concerning this issue. On Amazon.com I read some excerpts from books by Jack Deere. He talks about so-called "Gifts of the Holy Spirit" and how he, theologically denying them before, came to believe in them.

First I read a part of "Surprised by the Power of the Spirit" (Amazon.com link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310211271).

He talks about how one day he had a telephone conversation with a renowned psychiatrist and Christian author (Dr. White) of whom he wanted to hold 4 lectures at his church. That person wanted to talk about healing though and convinced him that it still exists today. He then told him about two spectacular stories he had experienced:

[...] about a young child in Malaysia who was covered from head to toe in eczema. The eczema was raw in some places and oozing. The child was in such discomfort that he had kept his parents up for the past thirty-six hours. The child was behaving so wildly that they had to catch him in order to pray for him.

 

As soon as Dr. White and his wife, Lorrie, laid their hands on the child, he fell fast asleep. Within twenty minutes or so of their prayer, the oozing stopped and the redness began to fade. By the next morning the child's skin had returned to normal and was completely healed. Dr. White told me a second spectacular story of bone actually changing under his hands while he prayed for someone with a deformity.

"Surprised by the Power of the Spirit", p. 20

Well, the first story could probably be explained by psychological and medical means. I'm not so sure about the second story, but unfortunately he doesn't give any more details.

He then goes on about the lecture about healing Dr. White had held at his church and how some people were prayed on afterwards. One woman was there who had a specific problem: her desire for people's approval was actually controlling her life. To make it short, she was healed in a very dramatic scene where her head began to go up and down and she began wailing. In the end she was healed, with the author, Jack Derre, mentioning that she would normally never have done such an embarrassing thing in public. According to him all her problems existed because she had been possessed by a demon, that was taken away from her that day when she was later prayed on again in private.

Well, actually that story does not sound very convincing to me. The whole incident can probably be explained by psychological means.

However there are some more stories later in that book. He talks about John Wimber, who seems to be some kind of faith healer. He describes the first of Wimber's session that he witnessed. He began with healing people with back pain.

Quite a few people came down to the front of the church to be prayed for by teams of church members rather than by Wimber himself. After a few minutes he said, "There is a woman here who has severe back pain, but you haven't come forward yet. Come forward; I think the Lord will heal you right now."

 

[...] But no one came forward. [...] He said, "You went to the doctor several days ago, you have had this pain for years. Please come forward" [...] But no woman got up and came forward. [...] Then he looked up at the audience and said, "Your name is margaret" Then, with a grandfatherly smile, he added, "Now Margaret, you get up and come up here right now." About halfway down the center section, next to the aisle, Margaret got up and began to walk rather sheepishly toward the front. [...] But before Margaret made it down to the front of the church, a wave of skepticism and disgust came over me. I said to myself, What if he paid her to do this. What if she's Margaret on Thursday night here in Fort Worth, Texas, and then on Saturday night in some other city she is Mabel [...] At about the same time I had begun to doubt this whole process, the man sitting next to me, whom I had known for fifteen years and who was also in my church, exclaimed, "That's Margaret my sister-in-law!"

 

Mike Pinkston's sister-in-law, Margaret Pinkston, went down to the front of the church that evening after being called out specifically by John Wimber. And when several adults prayed for her, she was healed of a condition she had had for years. I knew that family, and I knew there was nothing fake about that healing.

"Surprised by the Power of the Spirit", pp. 35-37

He then goes on to talk about Paul Cain. He seems to be some kind of healer as well, apparently with some prophetic abilities.

Paul had just finished giving a wonderful message and was beginning to pray for the people in the audience. There were about 250 people there that morning. He asked the diabetics to stand. As he started to pray for the diabetics he looked at a gray [...] lady on his right. He stared at her for a moment, having never met her (or anyone else in the audience for that matter), and then he said, "You do not have diabetes; you have low blood sugar. The Lord heals you of that low blood sugar, now. I see a vision of you sitting in a yellow chair. You are saying, 'If I could just make it until the morning. If I could just make it until the morning' Your allergies torment you so badly that sometimes they keep you up awake all night. The Lord heals those allergies, now. That problem with the valve on your heart - it goes now in the name of Jesus. And so does that growth on your pancreas.

 

[...]

 

Paul continued looking at the woman and then he said, "The devil has scheduled you for a nervous breakdown" [...] [Her husband] knew that his wife was very close to a nervous breakdown. Paul said, "The Lord interrupts that plan now. You will not have the breakdown"

 

And then, just as suddenly as Paul had begun to speak over the woman, he stopped and said, "I think that is all the Lord wants me to do now." Then he sat down on the front row. [...] I had never seen anyone called out of an audience like that, unknown to the speaker, and then have four conditions in her body not only identified but pronounced healed.

 

[...]

 

The woman whom Paul pronounced healed that day is named Linda Tidwell. I have had several conversations with Linda and her husband Jim since that September day in 1988.

 

Here is what happened in the aftermath of Paul's ministry to her. She went to her doctor that week and was tested. Her low blood sugar was now normal, and her allergies had left immediately. (They had been just as severe as Paul had said.) A heart murmur that she had since her childhood was healed, and the problem with her pancreas was gone. Her depression and her [...] condition also left, and over the next few months she lost thirty-five pounds of weight that had been brought on by worry and anxiety. Every medical condition mentioned by Paul had been both accurate and healed.

 

A year later she told me that one thing Paul had said didn'r ring true to her. He had said, "I see you sitting in a yellow chair." She puzzled for a long time afterwards. It didn't make sense to her because they didn't have a yellow chair. Then she remembered that before they had moved to Fort Worth, she had painted her rocking chair, which was yellow, black. After awhile, she had forgotten that it used to be yellow. Paul had actually seen a vision of her prior to their moving to Fort Worth, when her allergies were at their worst. Since that time Linda has visited a number of churches in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, giving her testimony about the wonderful healing God had done for her.

"Surprised by the Power of the Spirit", pp. 39-41

What do you think about these stories? What explanations could there be for them? Actually so far I have been rather skeptical about those faith healers. For me they look like charlatans. Those stories presented in the parts of the book sound quite astonishing though...

You can find an excerpt from the book on the Amazon.com link mentioned above. With the "search inside the book" option you can also find all the other parts I mentioned in this posting. I have only quoted the most relevant parts here.

I read some parts from another book by Jack Deere - "The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy" - but I will talk about that in another posting.

Thanks, I just wrote a reply to your post.

According to the National Geographic article I mentioned there, "more than a hundred billion neurons make up the human brain, and the nerve cells are bunched in neocortical columns. These columns mark a jump in the brain's evolution that occurred 200 million years ago as mammals emerged from reptiles." (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0720_050720_bluebrain.html)

BTW, how are the brains of other animals organized, e.g. dolphins? Those are said to be highly intelligent as well (of course not comparable to humans, but still impressive).

However, I don't think it makes that much of a difference whether one calls the neural units "dendrons" or "neocortical columns". I'd be interested if anyone else except of Eccles has done some serious study about those supposed "psychons" and if there is any scientific research that has been done about them.

Interesting. The possibility of a DNI sounds rather scary to me though. I agree that it could (and probably would) be heavily abused.

I found a news article about the project at this site: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0720_050720_bluebrain.html

I'm not so sure if it's really possible to put all these ideas into practice that easily (or even at all). It will be quite interesting to follow how much AI will be able to improve in the future.

padren, there has been some talk about the split-brain syndrome in one of my earlier threads. You can find it here.

Here's a quote from a site I mentioned in my last posting from that thread:

As discussed in the experiments on split brain patients, if a perception does not go to the left hemisphere (our center for speech) the patient says they are not conscious of it. (see a standard experiment for a review) However, his right hemisphere is aware of it and can respond accurately. For example, if the person in the experiment was asked to use the object, he would be able to accurately use the key, or if asked to write down the name of the object, the left hand would be able to write the names of simple objects. Even so, the person says they do not know what the left hand is doing. This seems to tell us that we may become conscious of something only if the information about it reach the circuits that control speech in the left hemisphere. It seems that the consciousness of the right hemisphere is largely disjoint from that of the left, the right forms a kind of unconscious mind for the left. It can be disputed that the right hemisphere is not as conscious as the left because it manifests its consciousness in other ways. The right hemisphere has an unconscious knowledge of the stimuli that is presented to it.

 

[...]

 

It is important to note that in these patients the hemispheres are not completely disconnected, the right hemisphere can inject ideas into the left through the brainstem. Split brain patients experience these communications as unexplainable hunches from the unconscious.

 

This brings us to an interesting question, are the right and left hemispheres of a split brain patient of different consciousness? Sperry rejected this notion, and most scientists agreed with him. While split-brain patients could be manipulated into displaying two independent cognitive styles, the underlying opinions, memories, and emotions were the same. This could be explained anatomically. As discussed earlier, deeper structures of the brain that are critical to emotion and physiological regulation remained connected. Split brains, actually, are not really split into two but instead form a Y.

From: http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/ubnrp/split_brain/Consiousness.html

(Unfortunately the link is no longer working - however, you can still see it at the Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20040820125746/http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/ubnrp/split_brain/Consiousness.html The text needed to be highlighted with the mouse cursor in order to be seen on my computer though)

I just found something about John Eccles at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carew_Eccles

So his Nobel Prize has nothing to do with free synapses or dualism, but he wrote about this philosophy: "How the Self Controls Its Brain"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Self_Controls_Its_Brain

A quote from that link:

Eccles calls the fundamental neural units of the cerebral cortex "dendrons", and proposes that each of the 40 million dendrons is linked with a mental unit, or "psychon", representing a unitary conscious experience. In willed actions and thought, psychons act on dendrons and, for a moment, increase the probability of the firing of selected neurons, while in perception the reverse process takes place.

Are there other persons that have dealt with these "psychons" or is there any research that has been done about them?

AL, I understand what you are saying, but thinking this way everything is natural. Everything that exists, no matter what it is, must be natural then. And of course that makes sense, but still I think it might sometimes make sense as well to talk about unnatural or supernatural things, even if they would be natural as well in the strict sense.

----

Hm, I also had thoughts along similar lines about possible explanations, bascule & Edtharan. According to the second article she was at least able to walk with the aid of braces and a walker at the age of five. Maybe the bad condition she was in after those spasms had also psychological reasons. Maybe she could have stood up and walked at the point of time when the miracle occurred even without the 'miracle', but just didn't think it was possible. Of course we don't know... it's a strange case anyway.

Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe we will know someday how things like that happen. But we know a good deal about cancer now, and nothing hints at it disappearing spontaneously.

Well, maybe cancer might be a bad example. Especially of cancer it is known that rare cases of spontaneous remission exist. Not all of them are connected to some religious miracle story, sometimes it just goes back on its own. The reason for this is not known yet, I think.

That website, as well as the first few dozen that turn up on Google are not critical examinations. They simply assert her claim. They are not even mainstream media outlets -- all of them are Christian evangelical sites, and there's good reason to be skeptical of them.

Yes, that's true, but I wanted to say that at least it wasn't only shown on the 700 Club, but that she also told her story elsewhere.

Even the WB network (which broadcasts 700 Club and Christian Broadcasting Network where I live) puts up a disclaimer before the show saying the views expressed and the claims reported within are not the responsibility of the network, and I don't blame them for doing that.

Oh, interesting, I didn't know that. But from what I've read, that Pat Robertson guy sometimes makes very wild claims, like being able to steer hurricanes away from his company by prayer. *g*

Someone needs to critically examine her claim, is all I'm saying. Though I suspect that calls for a critical examination would result in her supporters being offended and the critics chided for "lack of faith," as is the case with my two aforementioned favorite miracle scam healers, Benny Hinn and John of God.

That might be true... on the other hand, if she stayed in a hospital, there must be records, so at least I don't think that her whole illness story is made up. The name of the hospital is even mentioned in the article.

What do you think how those events could be explained in a natural way? Like her precognition of the church...

Just to be sure, you do know that a law of nature is not "legislation" that things in the universe are all expected to obey, correct? A law of nature is a decription we make based on our observations. Natural laws do not get violated, but as descriptions, they can turn out to be incorrect. That said, defining miracle to be a violation of a natural law is a poor definition, as a miracle would essentially result from an inadequate description/explanation on our part (i.e. the degree to which something is a miracle is the extent to which we are ignorant of what caused it).

Yes, of course I know that. I just wanted to write down a short definition, but it's not that easy to keep it short and accurate at the same time.

How would you define the term 'miracle' then? Maybe the involvement of something 'supernatural' could be required. But then one could ask, how do you define supernatural?

I mean, the placebo effect is certainly proof that mental predisposition towards healing greatly affects the outcome and that the brain possesses some sort of centralized marshalling ability for eliciting almost subconscious, involuntary control over the rest of the body's subsystems, at least to a certain extent.

Yes, I also had thoughts along those lines. What do you think how her knowledge of that church she gained from her vision could be explained? According to the article she described it in great detail to the pastor...

I see... I think I now understand the concept of property dualism, thanks.

I don't have an answer to that, but keep in mind that not everything you have in your body has a prespecified purpose. What is your appendix for besides getting infected and killing you? It used to house bacteria to digest cellulose, but that was too back in our evolutary lineage to be useful now.

From what I've read the appendix (as well as the cecum) is still used for the digestion of cellulose in some other mammals. In addition to this it's supposed to have a function as part of the human immune system.

@AL: That woman from the article, Marlene Klepees, did not only appear on the 700 Club. If you search for her name on Google you come up with other pages, e.g. this one: http://www.heavensscentflowers.com/marlene.htm

There's also a french website talking about her, IIRC even with a small video.

Define "miracle"

Anything that goes against the known laws of nature in an extreme way. Like the story I talked about above. Usually it's in a religious context, e.g. miracle healings, visions of the future, etc. Also like the story I talked about above.

Hi everyone!

I'm a rather agnostic person myself and although I wouldn't completely rule out the existence of something beyond our universe, I'm usually quite skeptical about miracle claims. But then there are some stories out there that really are quite astounding.

What do you think about this issue? What do you make of miracles?

For instance take this story: http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/amazing/healing_marlene_klepees110501.asp

The woman in that article, Marlene Klepees, had been handicapped since her childhood. She suffered from cerebral palsy, a disease for which there exists no cure so far. Throughout the years her condition worsened until she was at a point where she didn't even have any real control of her head or her neck.

But then she received a vision from God of her being healed in a church and of a date three weeks ahead. She waited, but on the day before that date nothing had happened. She then had someone open the Yellow Pages and pick out some church. They called the pastor and after she had asked him a lot of questions about what the church believed, they arranged a meeting. They finally brought her to the church where she was prayed upon and healed - there she could start walking again. Her vision improved as well, so she could take of her glasses. A few weeks later she was completely healed - all signs of previous abnormality were gone. She's living a normal life since then.

Another astounding thing is that in her vision she could get a clear picture of everything, so she described the church to the pastor in great detail on the phone, never having been in the church before. How could she know these details?

For the complete story click on the link above. What do you think about this?

Consciousness and qualia are emergent properties of the physical operation of the brain. Like Cognition said, this is known as property dualism..

So according to property dualism it's not like atoms having both physical and mental properties, but rather like the atoms forming the brain, in the way they work together giving rise to the mental properties?

Anyway, back to OP... free synapses - a receiver for the soul? No. You Cartesian Dualists need to stop looking for some magical mystical metaphysical gateway to the soul, be it the pineal gland, free synapses, some as-yet-discovered quantum property of neurons, etc. It doesn't exist.

Well, actually I'm not a Cartesian dualist. I don't hold the view of any specific philosophy (one could call me rather agnostic), but still I myself am rather skeptical of the claim made in the original posting. I'd like to know if the given description of those free synapses is correct though, or if maybe it is exaggerated. If those free synapses exist, what could they be good for?

Very interesting. Axons forming antenna like structures on the surface of the human brain is new to me, but I have observed that the very versatile, magnetically active microtubules that form the endoskeleton of eucary cells resemble antenna and might triple for a computational devise.

Well, I haven't heard of this. More possible 'antennas'? Do you have a source for that?

and that is the fact that any realistic person, in my view, should be a property-dualist. By this I mean to say that brain-processes have physical properties and consciousness can only be known from a subjective viewpoint and has different properties. So, for now I am a property-dualist

Property dualism... didn't know that, but I found something on Wikipedia: "It asserts that when matter is organized in the appropriate way (i.e., organized in the way that living human bodies are organized), mental properties emerge."

There's also a short definition at http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/propertydualism.html.

Do I understand it correctly that it means that matter has or can have different properties, like on different levels? Like some atom having physical properties, but also having mental properties on a different level at the same time?

But to come back to the question of the free synapses:

Perhaps I've misinterpreted the article, but is it saying that there are synapses that don't go anywhere on the surface of the brain? If this is the case, it's hardly surprising. I wouldn't expect the surface of the brain to be a perfect boundary, with no stray synapses extending beyond its surface...

Yes, I think that's what it's saying. But it doesn't sound as if those were only a couple of stray synapses here and there, but rather as if the whole surface was covered with them - not randomly, but with a real structure.

From what I've heard, the brain does have a fairly clear hierarchy, since we can trace its evolutionary history back through its layers - primate, mammalian and finally reptilian (or something along those lines).

Yes, I've just read something like that quite recently. So there seems to be some hierarchy, but as you said, just no single place to which we could point for consciousness.

what about the interpretation that they are receivers for a soul? Are there really no other explanations for them? Why isn't this topic more talked about in the media or in science generally?

 

I expect because the actual relevance of these free synapses has been severely overstated.

That might be true. Actually, I don't know enough about brain structure to comment on that - that's why I started this thread.

Hi everybody!

I've not been on the SFN forums during the last months, but today I read about an issue that fits quite well into the neuroscience forum I think. It's from a German website, so the text is in German, but I will translate the part I am talking about.

Let's begin:

From the area of natural sciences just one further example - as announced above, evidence for the existence of a soul.

 

----

 

Nervous system and brain (from: Walter van Laack, »Eine bessere Geschichte des Lebens«/»A better history of life«, Aachen 2001, p. 115-119)

 

... now something about brain construction on a large scale, before I'll devote myself at the end of this chapter to the especially important, very small details in the cortex of the brain:

 

Hierarchically above the spinal marrow, the at the same time lowermost part of the so-called central nervous system, the oldest and meanwhile lowest part of the brain is located, the hindbrain. Above is the middle brain, followed by the interbrain. Over all these parts the historically developed youngest and hierarchically at the same time highest part of the brain, the cerebrum, also called cortex, is put. Alongside this a special rank regarding position and function is taken by the cerebellum.

 

If one cuts open a cerebrum, one can easily discern a gray layer from a white one. The so-called gray substance houses an overwhelming multitude of neurons, nerve cells. In the vernacular one talks about "gray matter" because of this. This surface is strongly enlarged by many twists and furrows, especially in the human brain.

Compared to the next highest mammals, the apes, all that concerns the number of cells and their connections among each other alone leads to a kind of "quantum leap" for the human: The white substance lies below and consists of many different "conduit pipes" ["Leitungsbahnen"]. Thinking, feeling, memory and consciousness lie, according to today's predominantly voiced school of thought, in the gray cells - either in those of the cerebral cortex or in those that are located in mostly insular accumulations, so-called cores, in the brain sections that are lying below.

 

(...)

 

Rarely noticed, but in this context very interesting, is the following aspect: Each nerve cell (neuron) possesses many branchings, the dendrites (the "receiving pole" ["Empfangsmast"]) and the neurites/axons, i.e. the "broadcasting pole" ["Sendemast"].

If one looks at the "formation" of the neurons in the cortex of the brain, the many dendrite bundles of the neurons there really point upwards or outwards, erect.

Like the fibrils of a fixed brush they point to the surface of the brain and approx. every 100 of these vertically ascending dendrites are bundled to a functional unit, the dendron. In one single section of the cortex of the brain alone, e.g. the center for motor function, i.e. the one for body movements, there are approx. 40 million of such dedrons in the human brain, compared to only about 200.000 for the higher mammals. Each single one of these "brush fibrils" is furthermore covered with circa 5000 thorns, that form free synapses. Here we now find all in all trillions of synpases, that entwine like ivy to the surface of the brain and in doing so don't contact any further nerve cell!

 

Each of these "antennas" possesses again many thousand control areas ["Schaltstellen"], the synapses with their Boutons [?], of which each one has a vesicle lattice. Even without all-too much fantasy these can be compared to flat parabolic mirrors, by which consequently any creature with such a cerebrum, thus e.g. all mammals and of course most notably the human, could start receiving.

 

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Why does the human have trillions of synapses in his gray cells, that reach into empty space at the surface? Why does the intellectual decision always begin with an activation and subsequent concentration of these free synapses (Eccles)?

 

Every machine is constructed hierarchically: A control device sends an order to the receiver. If there are many receivers but no clearly determinable controller, a machine doesn't work. Looking at the human the "machine of the brain" is without clear hierarchy - obviously the control device is located outside the brain. The brain is only the executing organ.

 

Not only Nobel prize winner Sir John Eccles has come to this conclusion. However, much more important than the judgment of this renowned brain scientist is that no alternative interpretation is available for these insights. In other words: except for the advocates of the existence of a soul no one has so far even made a suggestion that explains wherefrom and for what these free synapses exist.

From: http://www.karl-leisner-jugend.de/Hinweise%20auf%20Gott.htm

What do you think about this?

Is the description of the brain structure and of those free synpases correct?

Well, at least a Nobel prize winner talks about it... but what about the interpretation that they are receivers for a soul? Are there really no other explanations for them? Why isn't this topic more talked about in the media or in science generally? At least I hadn't heard about it so far...

Regards,

GreenDestiny

Indeed!

"This kind of topsy-turvey picture can only be resolved by taking a more holistic view of the brain as the organ of consciousness. The whole shapes the parts as much as the parts shape the whole. No component of the system is itself stable but the entire production locks together to have stable existence. This is how you can manage to persist even though much of you is being recycled by day if not the hour."

It'll be interesting when someone find out more about it... 'No component itself is stable, but the system as a whole is' is not really a very detailed explanation.

Well, at the moment it seems that these split-brain patients still remain one person rather than become two new ones.

I found an interesting link about this operation: http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/split-brain.html

Also, from another site:

As discussed in the experiments on split brain patients, if a perception does not go to the left hemisphere (our center for speech) the patient says they are not conscious of it. (see a standard experiment for a review) However, his right hemisphere is aware of it and can respond accurately. For example, if the person in the experiment was asked to use the object, he would be able to accurately use the key, or if asked to write down the name of the object, the left hand would be able to write the names of simple objects. Even so, the person says they do not know what the left hand is doing. This seems to tell us that we may become conscious of something only if the information about it reach the circuits that control speech in the left hemisphere. It seems that the consciousness of the right hemisphere is largely disjoint from that of the left, the right forms a kind of unconscious mind for the left. It can be disputed that the right hemisphere is not as conscious as the left because it manifests its consciousness in other ways. The right hemisphere has an unconscious knowledge of the stimuli that is presented to it.

 

[...]

 

It is important to note that in these patients the hemispheres are not completely disconnected, the right hemisphere can inject ideas into the left through the brainstem. Split brain patients experience these communications as unexplainable hunches from the unconscious.

 

This brings us to an interesting question, are the right and left hemispheres of a split brain patient of different consciousness? Sperry rejected this notion, and most scientists agreed with him. While split-brain patients could be manipulated into displaying two independent cognitive styles, the underlying opinions, memories, and emotions were the same. This could be explained anatomically. As discussed earlier, deeper structures of the brain that are critical to emotion and physiological regulation remained connected. Split brains, actually, are not really split into two but instead form a Y.

From: http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/ubnrp/split_brain/Consiousness.html

Very interesting, really. So there still seems to be one unified consciousness, but some part of it works on its own, like some kind of subconsciousness.

Also, the brain isn't really split into two completely seperate parts, but as the text says still connected through other parts below. Thinking of the original question of this thread, what would happen if you took out half of the brain of a person and transplanted it into another body (where the brain had been completely removed before): Maybe this wouldn't work the way I thought it would, because you can't really take out one complete half - thinking of that 'Y', the bottom is important for the forming of a personality as well, I guess. I was wondering which of the two new persons the original person would be, if one half of the brain were transplanted, but I think that the person would remain in the original body then (with several disabilities of course).

I'd be interested to hear what happens to these people 20+ years later, when each side has been developing on its own. I'll have to look it up sometime.

If you find out something more, just post it here.

Also, something else I asked myself: If the two brain halves don't work together very well after they have been split, why don't these patients have difficulties with three-dimensional vision? After all you need the information from two images to create a three-dimensional picture - why aren't there any problems when each half of the brain gets an image from one eye only?

Wow, that's interesting and indeed rather strange.

This is really like two distinct persons living in the same body. How do these persons react to the situation? Do they know that there is somhow someone else in their head? Seen from the perspective of one of those persons...

I think that would be it. Each half would retain the memories, skills, ideas, etc. that you had on that particular side of the brain before the split. Each half would probably remember being you, but now feel parts of itself are missing (at least, if it still retained the ability to introspect and ponder such things). The actual "you" from before the split would be gone, and two new "you's" would fill the void. Because they'd probably share some of the memories of the old "you", they'd probably still feel like they are the same "you" as before.

Well, thinking of those boys who had half of their brain removed - wouldn't it be a bit like killing them? I mean, in a way they would not be the same person they had been before... their old "I" would no longer exist.

I somewhere read the argument that the cells of the human body are continuously being replaced by new ones, so that after some period of maybe 7 years you have a completely new body. Because of this, the argument goes on, the world can't be completely material and there has to be something like a soul, because your body has been exchanged but you are still the same person.

What do think of think of this argument?

I also read somewhere that brain cells are indeed the only cells that are not being replaced (and that explains why brain damage is permanent).

Can someone clarify this?

Do you have the same cells in your brain from birth to death?

Another thought I had was that maybe cells could be replaced, but the information that is carried in the brain could stay the same - so that the "I" is something like the ongoing state of the information in your brain.

But if the cells themselves stayed the same, this argument wouldn't work anyway...

Is this really true? Do you have a source for it?

At least that sounds very strange... so that person's two brain halves aren't connected anymore? Does one half always control one arm then or how does the experiment work?

Still I'm wondering, if this would happen to me... right now I have the conscious experience of being me - what it feels like to be me. This seems to be a unique experience, at least I can't have the experience of being my neighbor or anybody else. So if they removed the connecting neurons between my brain halves - which of the two persons would I be then? I mean, you can't be two persons at the same time.. you can't be yourself and your neighbor as well and have both conscious experiences.

Or would it be more like two new persons with new unique personal conscious experiences?

Yeah, I'll definitely see it, I'm already very curious how it's gonna be. But I have good feelings about it.

I already liked Episode II, while Episode I was very mediocre and this one should be the darkest of them all... and that sounds like a good thing. Also this one should really tie the story together, so I'm positive about it. But I think I won't see it on the first day, maybe one or two weeks later...

Also' date=' your correct about our nation becoming hysterical. But thats because they see little kids stolen from their bedrooms, malls, and front porches that make them this way.

[/quote']

 

Yep, and although cases of child kidnapping and murder have rather been decreasing than increasing during the last decades the media creates some kind of hysteria today as if this had become a rising danger lately. Actually the chance of this happening is rather low and I think that other dangers are currently far more real for children, e.g. non-sexual violence from the parents or simple neglect. Of course those are not as "spectacular"...